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Don't get me started on mana points. YOU CANNOT CONTAIN THE POWER OF THE AETHER IN MERE NUMBERS
Hello yes I would like 32 aethers please
^^^ statement dreamed up by the utterly DERANGED
I'd love to see a mechanic where mana points are just "here's how much magic you can control" and you can go beyond that if you want to but crazy unpredictable things will happen and you will almost certainly die.
In the old SNES game Paladin's Quest, HP and MP share an identical pool. You could either hit with your weapon or use magic, depending on which would cost you more. Magic comes at a PRICE!:-P
So it was all Blood Magic? How villainous. :)
Meh, but you saved the world so... there's that:-P.
You Either Die A Hero, Or You Live Long Enough To See Yourself Become The Villain
Mage the awakening (2e) has a concept of Reaches. As in overreaching. You can throw more than your safe amount of reaches on a spell to get it to be bigger, longer, more complicated... but you'll have increasing odds of causing a Problem. And every time you make that check in a scene, it gets harder to pass safely.
Good game. Extremely different than DND
The Wheel of Time rpg was 90% D&D3, but it had a fun twist on the casting mechanics that let you try to go beyond your spell slots at the risk of losing all your casting.
That's in Glitch
Dresden Files RPG works that way, Wizards can attempt to do basically anything but the more magic you try to control the worse it can go wrong.
In GURPS, you expend either Fatigue Points or Hit Points to cast a spell.